Let The Eat Lead

"There are over 6,000 political and religious prisoners in Uzbekistan. Every year, some of them are tortured to death. Sometimes the policemen or intelligence agents simply break their fingers, their ribs and then their skulls with hammers, or stab them with screwdrivers, or rip off bits of skin and flesh with pliers, or drive needles under their fingernails, or leave them standing for a fortnight up to their knees in freezing water. Sometimes they are a little more inventive. The body of one prisoner was delivered to his relatives last year, with a curious red tidemark around the middle of his torso. He had been boiled to death." - George Monbiot, activist and writer

Given that George Bush has been busy bringing 'democracy' to the
Middle East and former Soviet Union states, you'd think the White
House would be condemning the dictatorial Uzbek government, who
this week have been busy murdering hundreds of their own people. A
spokesman simply murmured that the regime should "exercise caution
and restraint", nothing more. It's only a week since Bush visited
Georgia, a country which he referred to as "a beacon of liberty
for this region and the world". Congratulating the people for
overthrowing ex-Soviet apparatchik Edvard Shevardnadze in the
'Rose Revolution', Bush must have had a sense of déjà vu. Only
last Christmas the White House lavished similar praise on the
Ukrainians' 'Orange Revolution', providing material, financial and
political support. When crowds demonstrated in Lebanon,
Kyrgizstan, Ukraine and Georgia, the Americans welcomed it as
"people power" and pledged to support "freedom-loving peoples" of
the world in their struggles to overthrow "brutal dictatorships".
So why go so quiet when the Uzbek people rise up against their own
Soviet-era dictator?

to Hell and Uzbek

Well, Uzbekistan, as Saddam Hussein's Iraq once was, is seen by
the US government as a key asset. John Pike, head of the military
analysis website GlobalSecurity.org, said close ties with
Uzbekistan also serve longer-term goals: "It's one more piece of
the (former) Soviet Union that's in our power rather than
Moscow's. It's also one more piece of the encirclement of Iran.
Right now, it's a base for operations in Afghanistan. What it
might become 10 years from now is anyone's guess. It's part of the
'great game'."

Then there's the small matter of Uzbekistan's 600 million+ barrels
of proven oil reserves - which is probably the reason why George
Bush has even heard of the country. After 9-11 the US established
army bases there which will no doubt come in handy as they
manouvre to gain control of the oil resources, as well as keeping
the locals in line so a consortium of US companies can build a new
oil pipeline through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea.

Nevermind all that, the current spin is that actually the Uzbek
government - with $500million in 'aid'from the Pentagon - is
fighting a courageous battle against Islamic terrorists. The truth
is more likely that people are turning to anyone offering a better
life than the current dictatorial regime. As Ex-British Ambassador
(see below) Craig Murray reports, "The two main strains of
opposition are the Erk and Birlik parties - They are both moderate
parties with a long history and would, I think, adopt a more
Islamic stance than the current government - but neither is
extreme nor bears any resemblance to the Taliban. They're not
trying to impose that kind of society."

Ironically, the danger is that continuing such oppression and the
pursuit of economic policies which lead to poverty and hardship
for so many will actually radicalise the opposition, driving them
into more extreme forms of Islamic Doctrines as they see any form
of attempted democratic resistance crushed.

Uzbekistand off

So, apart from the usual diverting of wealth into the hands of the
chosen powerful few, why should anyone want to protest? If we take
a look at the State Department website, it accuses the Uzbek
government of "torture as a routine investigation technique".
Guess that sounds just like the US really - it certainly doesn't
trouble them; Colin Powell's men bunged the same law enforcement
services $79 million of aid in 2002. The State Department says
officers who receive training are vetted to ensure they have not
tortured anyone. Yeah right... to repeat, sounds just like the US
military.

Craig Murray, the British ambassador to Uzbekistan who was given
the boot last year for drawing attention to human rights abuses in
the country, says the CIA brought many prisoners to the Central
Asian nation for interrogation, knowing full well that the Uzbeks
would use torture during those interrogations. Uzbekistan is
believed to be a destination country for the highly secretive
'renditions programme', where the CIA ships terrorist suspects to
third-party countries where it can freely use torture to extract
the necessary confessions. The program began under an executive
order signed by President Pappa Bush in December 1992. Although
the CIA has never officially commented on the programme, flight
logs obtained by the New York Times showed that CIA-linked planes
that landed in the capital, Tashkent, had the same serial numbers
as jets used to transfer prisoners around the world. The logs show
at least seven flights from 2002 to late 2003, originating from
destinations in the Middle East and Europe.

Craig Murray has been on about this for ages, but his first
bollocking came in March 2003 when he was reprimanded for writing,
"When it comes to the Karimov regime, systematic torture and rape
appear to be treated by the Bush administration as an indulgence,
which should not affect our relationship and should be downplayed
in the international forum". Later that year some of his embassy
staff were sacked and he was called back to London to face 18
disciplinary charges, including "hiring dolly birds for above the
usual rate" in the visa department (even though it had an all-male
staff) and granting UK visas in exchange for sex. If he told
anyone about the charges he would be in violation of the Official
Secrets Act and sent to prison... just standard British gagging
procedure then.

Meanwhile a procession of top Bush administration officials
trekked to Tashkent to thank the dictator for his services. Donald
Rumsfeld, not content with that 1983 photo of himself shaking
hands with Saddam Hussein, praised Karimov for his "wonderful
cooperation", while former Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill,
admired the autocrat's "very keen intellect and deep passion" for
improving the lives of ordinary Uzbeks.

As journalist Jonathan Freedland put it "Think of it as the
Sonofabitch School of foreign policy. Legend has it that when
Franklin D. Roosevelt was confronted with the multiple cruelties
of his ally, the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, he replied:
'He may be a sonofabitch, but he's our sonofabitch.' More than 60
years on, that serves as a pretty good expression of American, and
therefore British, attitudes to Karimov, the tyrant of Tashkent
who has ruled the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan since the
break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991."